Bouquet
by LilyWhite22
Summary: Cora dies. When she wakes up, magic is real, and she has pink hair.
1. Black Rose

Flower Meanings:

Black Rose: death, farewell, rejuvenation, rebirth

* * *

Coraline remembered dying very well.

She was trotting along the street, heading back home from a long day of classes at university, trying to untangle her headphones without taking them out of her hoodie pocket, and was so involved in that, that she didn't even notice a _screech_ from behind her, before being hit from behind.

She blacked out for a moment, before coming to, face down on the concrete, in agony. Her breath came out in rattling, hissing spurts (probably a punctured lung, at the least), as she tried to turn herself around to see what had hit her, and then there was kind of a wet _popcrackcrunch_ from her lower body, and oh, she could move a lot easier, and oh god, was that blood? Fuck. She didn't know, she thought one of her eyeballs had burst from being dragged across the ground. It was either blood or whatever fluid was in eyes dripping down her face, and she doubted it was blood. She could feel wind hitting the inside of her socket so that was probably a good indicator.

Cora flopped down on her back, too shocked to try and remain propped up, and recalled joking about being hit by a car a lot, but could it have come at a worse time? Only a semester before graduation, instead of during finals two years ago, when she really needed it? Talk about timing. Jeeze. Hopefully she could live through this, if only to sue the everloving _shit_ out of the person that hit her. Goodbye student debts and _hellloooooo_ savings.

The thought crossed her mind of why she wasn't panicking, but she remembered very well what adrenaline did to the brain. She had been a 911 operator for a short while, and she had people literally try to make small talk before going, 'oh yeah, and I also have a minor case of stab-itis, do you think you could send someone over?'

Blearily, she thought she saw someone leaning over her and shouting, but if she was honest, her hearing and sight were so fucked at this point there could have been Nicholas II, last Tzar of Russia leaning over her, singing the national anthem, and she wouldn't have registered it _at all._

Needless to say, Coraline was dying.

She found she wasn't actually that sad about it, if only because it meant she dodged a lifetime of paying off student loans and working only to retire in world that was not kind to girls or old women. Though she would be sad at not being able to play her favourite series anymore, or update her fanfictions. God, there's a thought. A whole bunch of people out there, with no fucking idea she died, only the realization that she had stopped writing altogether.

Oh well, it's not like she'd be able to think about it once she died, anyway. That is, assuming she didn't go to some sort of afterlife, and just ceased to exist.

She hoped so. Fuck the afterlife. Oblivion before eternity. She didn't want to have to go to whatever purgatory or hell was there, if any religions were actually right about what happens after you die, and deal with all the smug believers of said religion saying 'I told you so' for eternity.

While she had been lying on the ground, not only had someone called the police, but also an ambulance, whose EMTs were actually picking her up and putting her on a stretcher. Cora tried to say something along the lines of 'it's okay, don't bother. I'm going to die.' but all that would come out of her was a sort of gurgling croak, as she hacked up blood, then immediately after, passed out.

When Cora woke up, she knew she was dead.

The fact that she wasn't in a hospital, was, of course, a good indicator, but the fact that really made it sink in was that she was surrounded by thousands of glowing white birds.

At least, she thought they were birds. They were glowing, so for all she knew they could be a new species of butterfly. They chirped, though.

But after all, she was dead, and no one knows what happened after death, so in all reality, there could be pink and purple spotted hippos waiting to appear. Or maybe the great spaghetti monster.

In any case, the birds appeared to have noticed her presence, as they had stopped amassing in the center of the room she was in, and seemed to be watching her, and waiting for something.

As she watched them, one broke off from one of the larger masses, and fluttered towards her, seeming hesitant, until she stretched out her hand in a beckoning way, and smiled in a way she thought was welcoming. It fluttered onto her hand, and at once, she had the overwhelming feeling of being judged, her entire self taken apart and examined under a microscope for any flaws or imperfections.

She supposed she must have passed whatever test she was undergoing, because after a couple of seconds, the judging feeling went away, replaced with a sort of approval.

As this was happening, the glowing butterfly-bird never left the palm of her hand, but as soon as the judgement was passed, it fluttered off of her hand, and landed on the tip of her nose.

Smiling, she went cross-eyed looking at it, and giggled when it tickled her nose with its fluttering. All of a sudden, she noticed all of the other butterfly-birds moving closer.

Almost as if her noticing them was a sort of signal, she was swarmed by them, all seemly clamoring to land on their own patch of skin. Honestly, she felt like Jake Sully from that one scene in 'Avatar'. Hopefully this would end as well for her as it did for him, though she could make do without the genocide and war.

Laughing, she tried not to dislodge or crush any of the glowing creatures as she maneuvered herself to sit down, holding her arms up and away from her sides to avoid any casualties. Dead or not, Cora wasn't a dickhead.

Chuckling, she looked down, "So what now? I seem to have passed your test, so does that mean I stay with you, or do I go somewhere else now?"

No answer.

Worth a try, at lea-

* * *

im absolutely useless at updating and magi was calling me. Sorry to all 3 people waiting for updates on my other fics


	2. Jasmine

Flower Meanings:

Lotus: Purity, chastity and eloquence; rebirth

* * *

Cora slept for a long time after the encounter with the strange butterfly-birds.

It was dark, and warm, and she felt the safest she'd ever been in her entire existence, so sleep came easily, and quickly. In the moments she was awake, she would hear a voice. It was soft, and loving, and if she really was dead, then she must be in heaven, because what else could that voice be, but god?

Cora wasn't even religious, but all of a sudden, she understood the appeal.

Sometimes she would hear other voices, some more often than others, but the one she heard (and loved) the most, was the warm one.

One of the other voices she loved, second only to the warm one, was the happy one, who was the louder of the two, and was the one she heard the second most.

Sometimes, she would feel something pressing gently against her back, and knew it was the loud voice. If she had the energy for it, or was feeling particularly playful, she'd press back, to the joy of both the warm and loud voices.

They stayed with her whenever she was awake, sometimes following her into sleep, and rejoiced whenever she would shift and move, sometimes kicking out to stretch her legs and get more comfortable. And almost every time, one of the voices would react.

A lot of the time, Cora would only wake up when her cocoon jolted. Sometimes she would feel like she was on a rollercoaster, going up and down at great speeds, sideways, upside down, etc.

When the movements happened, they could last anywhere from a short moment, to what felt like days. Sometimes, these times of movement lasted so long that she would get used to the bumps and go to sleep, and when she woke up again, she would still be moving.

Cora only figured out she was in the womb, when her mother (now there's something to think about, a whole new family) started to give birth.

It started off as any other waking moment would, her shifting around, and her mother cooing at her. All of a sudden, her cocoon started to contract around her, and her mother started to move faster, most likely heading towards somewhere to give birth, or towards their partner, to tell them that their water was breaking.

The hours following could only be described in one way. Squeezing, almost to the point of pain, but stopping just before that point.

Finally, after what Cora hoped, for her poor mother's sake, was a short and relatively painless labor, her new mother gave birth.

From Cora's point of view, what happened was that the immense pressure she was feeling increased for a moment, giving her the exact feeling of being pushed through a tube at a very strange angle, before she felt a breeze on the top of her skull, gasped her first breath of fresh air, and opened her eyes to see the brand new world she was just welcomed into.

Unfortunately for her, newborn babies don't exactly have good eyesight, so all she saw was blurs and the vague outlines of what were presumably people.

Though, if she was seeing correctly, it looked like they were either big fans of hair dye, wigs, or headdresses, because their heads had bright red topping them, and trailing off of them. It was either that, or she was born in an anime. Highly unlikely though, so hair enthusiasts it is!

It seemed she was born outside, because as her parents were wiping the birthing fluids off of her, she also felt a nice, cool breeze, and as she looked up, she could very faintly make out the night sky.

Cora figured she must have been born either to a pair of wanderers, or a couple travelling, because the blanket they wrapped her in was definitely a bit too rough and scratchy for her poor delicate newborn skin.

Though, she did admit that there was also a pretty good chance that they were poor, and did not have anything better to wrap her in. Either way, she'd live. She wasn't a complete weenie.

One thing she definitely knew, though, is that something was happening, because her new parents were very quiet, and whoever was holding her, their grip was getting tighter and tighter, almost as if they were scared.

All of a sudden, she felt something cold and damp press up against her forehead, almost like a cat or dog's nose, if the cat was a size of a truck.

Maybe that's why her parents were tense. God knows that if a large cat came up to her, her spouse, and her newly born child, she'd be a bit concerned it was planning on making them it's next meal. It seemed like this one was just here to give her a good boop on the forehead, though, because of the lack of teeth or claws, or screaming indicating any malicious intent.

Either way, it was fine, because after it touched her forehead, she could faintly hear its footsteps along with many others (how many animals were there?) as it padded away and left the new family alone.

It took a long time for her parents to relax and stop their deathgrip on her bundled up self, but it happened. Eventually. Not that she could blame them. The aforementioned big cat would make anyone a bit nervous.

Promptly after all this nonsense was over, cora fell asleep.

When she woke up, her vision had cleared significantly, to the degree that she actually thought it might be superior to her old body's vision, and wasn't that a relief? Her vision wasn't quite bad enough to warrant glasses, but god, it was close.

From what she could see, from her position in a sort of cot, she was now in a hut, as opposed to being in the open, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. She could not, however, see her new parents. The most obvious solution was, of course, to start wailing like the world was ending.

Almost immediately, who she assumed was her mother appeared in the doorway of the hut, rushed over, and picked her up, bouncing her gently in an attempt to soothe her.

Very quickly, she knew this was her mother, if only from the fact that her voice was the exact one she heard while in the womb, unless, of course, this was her birth-giver's partner, and her other parent was the one with the deep voice. Who even knows? She'd find out soon enough anyways. But until the genders of her parents were revealed, she was going to go with the gender binary and assume that the person holding her was, in fact, her mother.

It worked very quickly, to the great relief of her mother, as she wasn't actually crying because of any real reason, she just wanted to see what her new parents were like.

Her first impression was _god damn_ , she was going to be attractive when she grew up, if her mother's striking features were any indication.

Also, was she in an anime, or something? Because last time Cora checked, people didn't have bright red hair _and_ eyes. Her mother could very well be a very dedicated cosplayer, with an affinity for wigs and contact lenses, but she somehow got the feeling that her parent's features were entirely natural.

And wasn't that a thought? Growing up with a fairly decent chance, assuming her other parent didn't have the same distinctive features as her mother, that she would inherit _that_ face.

And what a face it was. Cora was absolutely shit at describing things, especially faces, so it was best to just take her word for it.

But one thing that really stood out to her, apart from the red pupils, were the kohl-lined eyes. Something about them intrigued her, for they looked almost... animal, if that made any sense. Like a tiger in the wild, watching the people passing it by, not too interested, but still watching, with a sense of potential, ready to spring into action at any moment. Enough purple prose. Her mother was beautiful, that was that.

She was surprised, though, at the fact that her mother was speaking perfect english. And there she was, thinking she wasn't born in an english speaking country. She still had a lot of questions though, like: where in the world was she? When was she? Was her original family still alive? So many questions, but so little ability in the body of a baby to ask said questions.

When did babies even start speaking? God, she hoped it was soon. Speaking baby talk for longer than a few months would drive her up the fucking wall. At least she wouldn't have to build from the ground up, like she would if her parents spoke a completely different language.

While her internal monologue was going on, her mother had stopped rocking her, put her into a sling on her front, and had taken Cora outside, most likely to meet her new family, and to go back to whatever she was doing before being called over by her child's cries.

Cora's first indication that she probably wasn't on earth anymore, was the fact that, almost immediately after exiting the hut with her mother, seeing that everyone had the same red hair and eyes as her mother. So either she was living in a family group, with everyone related staying in the same area, or _everyone_ from the particular ethnic group she was now born to, had these features as dominant ones.

Her second indication was seeing a group of men and women hauling in a vaguely bovine looking animal, with enormous tusks and a coat coloured _bright fucking green_ , with golden spots.

Either genetic modified creatures were now the main form of game on... you know what, let's just call it earth, evolution had somehow modified herd animals to look like that, with humans somehow looking almost exactly the same, or she wasn't on earth at all. And honestly, she was leaning more towards number three. At least then she wouldn't have to reconcile her ideas of what society was supposed to be like, with what it would be like then.

Actually, now that she was looking around, she figured she was probably in this world's equivalent of africa, because of the sheer vastness of the savannah surrounding her, and the eerie resemblance to what she had seen while working in animal sanctuaries all over africa.

There was mostly just grasslands, with what looked like acacia trees surrounding her village, and the odd baobab in the distance. All in all, not a bad environment, especially considering that she could see signs of the ocean being nearby, even though from what she knew, tropical grasslands weren't supposed to be close to the ocean, she was in a different world altogether, so maybe the rules just didn't apply in the ways that she knew them.

Stuck in her monologuing again, she didn't notice her father coming up and excitedly greeting her and her mother, until he scooped her out of her sling, and held her up to the sun, so he could smile up at her.

"Hello my beautiful little flower! Have you been behaving well for your mother, little one?" Laughing at her confused face, he brought her into the crook of his arm, and started peppering kisses all over her small face, laughing even harder at the baffled looks she was giving him.

"Give her over, Munatas, you're filthy from going out, and goodness knows she's hungry after sleeping for so long." While saying this, her mother took off the sling previously containing Cora, handed it over to her husband, and took a breast out of her shirt, before holding out her arms expectantly. "Well? come on then, I know this is the first time you've held her since she was born, but it's only been a few hours and you can hold her right after she's done eating."

Sighing heavily, her father very reluctantly handed her over to her mother, who, to Cora's absolute mortification, brought her nipple up to Cora's mouth, and encouraged her to start eating.

Giving his partner the most pathetic look he could manage, her father said, "I know that I can hold her again soon, it's just, well look her. She's just the most perfect thing I've ever seen in my life, and after that scare we got right after she came out of you, well, I just... I want to have her in my arms."

"Honey, I'm saying this in the nicest way I can think of, but unless you want to breastfeed Illi, you're going to have to give her up to me for a bit." pausing as she adjusted Cora in her arms, she continued, "and in case you've forgotten, I, too, got a scare last night, along with being the one to have to push a writing chunk of meat out of my nethers." Laughing at his pained expression, she leaned forward and patted his shoulder "Really dear, you'd think from that expression that _you_ were the on giving birth last night, not me."

Last night?! How on earth was that woman walking? Oh, wait. Actually, she remembered reading about this somewhere. Women can actually be up and about only an hour after giving birth, but physical exercise had to wait around six weeks.

"Tafsut, please don't talk like that around Illi, I've heard children can pick up words from adults at a very early age and I really don't want her first word to be something other than 'mama' or 'papa'. Or something children should be saying, not curses."

"Fair enough." Tafsut shrugged. "I'll do my best to control my language, but no promises."

Cora, now Illi, she supposed, was watching this with great interest. It was always useful knowing your parent's names, though in her old life, she didn't know what her parents actual names were until she was in grade school. They were just mom and dad.

Besides, as far as names went, Tafsut and Munatas were pretty good. She didn't know what they meant, but she doubted she was in a society that gave people names with disgusting meanings, like the vikings apparently did, so she'd be fine.

Now Tafsut was done arguing with her husband, she turned her attention back to her daughter, continued trying to get her to start nursing, and looked increasingly worried when Illi refused to suckle, or even put her face anywhere near her mother's nipple.

Illi, of course, had a very good reason for doing this, which was the fact that she was a grown-ass woman in a child's body, and thus was obviously a little leery of breastfeeding, even though she would have to if she didn't want to starve. She knew this was completely normal, but she was having trouble divorcing the fact that she was now a baby in a very obviously pre-technology society, and thus had to drink milk, with the fact that only a short while ago (in her perspective, at least), she was an adult herself.

But between her continued survival and her pride, Illi would rather live. Thus, she braced herself, and started to suckle, to her mother's great relief.

The less said about breast milk, the better. But it was filling, and that was all she needed, really.

Now that she was finally breastfeeding, her mother let out a great sigh of relief, and the tension that was building up finally dissipated, along with what was most likely the fear that something was wrong with her child.

Joke's on you, lady, your kid has the mind of an adult woman from another dimension, she'll never be normal.


End file.
